Amyloid plaque accumulation in the brain is the hallmark of many neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson disease, Down's syndrome and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Approaches to clinically diagnose and monitor the progression of these diseases include targeting of amyloid deposits with small-molecule imaging agents. Accordingly, fluorescence-based small molecule imaging of amyloids is a low cost, accessible, and non-radioactive technique for to detection of the amyloid deposits. Fluorescent compounds that maintain their brightness, spectroscopic properties, and specificity for binding amyloids in neuronal tissue, and exhibit superior chemical/hydrolytic stability in physiologically relevant solutions are disclosed herein. The enhanced stability of such compounds is useful in labeling amyloid deposits in living systems.